Postcode lottery. Does where you live really make such a difference to how you educate your DC?

[OrmIrian]

I am just curious really. I know very few people in RL who choose to educate privately. Some probably wouldn't even think of it, some would but can't afford, but most just don't feel the need. On MN I am left with the impression that that is not the norm, but it does seem that many of those who struggle with state education are in London. Is that a fair assumption?

I'd love to know if that really is the case.

Agree about the phrase goth. it is trotted out with dismal regularity. But it does seem to apply here. I am familiar with the secondary school problems in that postcode.... I don't envy those who have to deal with that.

Our local schools are fine rather than great although (touch wood) we have made the right choice for DS#1. We feel very fortunate really.

Ormirian, yes they do, there are a lot of children in our state schools who can afford private and would use private in other places but don't see the point when they can have a similar level of "service" for free. We have a lot of peope who have moved here to avoid school fees and get the same education. A fair few have moved out of London for just that reason.

A large number of attendees in our private schools are from other counties and coutries, we get the rather fabulous dropped to school in a helicopter thing too

Retired, do you mean Redland Green? Wasn't the school oversubscribed before it even opened which means that people are basing their decision not on actual statistics, but on snobbery?

I mean, it wasn't that they wanted their child to go to this school (as it hadn't opened yet) but rather the alternative was too gruesome to contemplate (in their opinion)

retiredgoth - exactly the same is true here - just substitute postcode S11 and school names "Dobcroft" and "Silverdale" in the above.

....absolutely right, ILMD!

Prior to the opening of Redland Green, Felicity and Oscar had to take their chances in schools peopled by Kane and Kaylee. How simply awful.

...so, a good proportion of those that could afford to chose the private option. Had everyone in this area used the existing state provision, then I suspect that the social mix would have been less homogenous, and the academic results better.

....and yes, the fact that the new school was oversubscribed before opening can only be attributed to the urge to be alongside 'People Like Us'. I know many folk deny this as a motive, but I think to do so is disingenuous.

Mind you, were I living in that neck of the woods, I'd have put my urchins down for Redland Green too I suspect...

...I just looked at S11 on Rightmove, UQD. Yep, looks familiar!

retiredgoth - I assume you know that a Bristl private school has recently transferred to state? Apparently it hasn't lost many of it's existing pupils but some went straight away. I'd be interested to see what will happen over the next year or so.

Bristol Cathedral and Colston Girls have Academy status. Selective, but don't charge fees.

Not that many people here go private, far more common at the other end of town where my (more affluent) academic colleagues live.

But we've recently seen a similar what's-in-a-name-thing working locally. Local schools are not actually particularly dire, but when the council secondary was made into a (non-selecting) academy run by a religious group, dd's friend's mum was adamant that her dd had to go there because an academy had got to be better than a bog standard school. It was our catchment school so I had been to the open evening and was not impressed. This academy is the first time we have actually had school pupils out of hand, rampaging through the school breaking things. And by the sounds of it, not learning an awful lot.

I could see it coming. But dd's friend's mum thought it was all in the name.

Moral: always look at the actual place and speak to the actual people.

Yes, I've never understood how magically transforming a school into an "Academy" is supposed to make it better. Nice new uniforms and new head and new paint - big deal. It starts from the assumption that the school is always the problem, and never the kids. On the first day of term the new head in the "new" school still has to work with the same raw material.